2025 was a big, complicated year for us here at Going Down Swinging and no doubt for our friends at the many other literary magazines we are lucky to work alongside. The year included changes in staffing and finances, complex shufflings and re-shufflings of our publishing program, and a fierce need to navigate a shifting, at times unsteady, literary landscape.
However, what this time has made crystal clear to us is that we remain determined to push on! Since our inception in 1979, we’ve always challenged the boundaries of what ‘literature’ looks like. Pre-‘net editions exploded with experimental prose; some included CDs of spoken word and sound recordings. With the advent of the digital publishing world, we’ve brought our readers audio works, online games, digital poetry, and hosted mini digital-lit festivals. Now, we’re excited to continue Going Down Swinging’s history of bold, experimental publication with our first publication of 2026: the Collab-Stories project.
Do you remember when you were a kid in the sandpit, making up stories with your best mate? That’s what the Collab-Stories project is all about.
It represents our determination to bring together new voices, new literary forms, new forays into what publishing can look like. As editors, it’s been a thrill to pair up some of our favourite writers, artists, composers, and jacks-of-all-trades, both emerging and established, to see what strange, beautiful new worlds they create together.
Literary publishing has never been a solo endeavour. It relies on communication and collaboration and community – and most of all, the bravery to share an idea with another person.
These works represent our determination to not only publish new forms of writing, but to build up community and courage, and to encourage others to find childlike joy in creating new worlds.
We hope these new works speak to these ideas, and bring our readers as much joy as they have to the artists behind them, and the team at Going Down Swinging.
From the Going Down Swinging team,
Laura Charlton, Wai-Mun Mah, Helena Pantsis and Xiaole Zhan
This wild shot-in-the-dark of a project features:
Dare I say it’s a bit presumptuous of us to assume that it wants communication at all…
And forgo any !/ consequences that might arise if we tried to communicate
This collaboration between artists Jamil Badi and Charlie Lee began with a vivid, energetic conversation at a local pub about ecology, technology, and ghillie suits and ended up undergoing an unexpected, adventurous transformation.
i get called so many names
in my short lifetime
This piece between artists Joseph Hosking and Stephen Zavitsanos began, like so much good writing, in the Notes app, and the artists’ friendship of ten years influenced its growth into a beautiful, introspective work of visual and poetic fusion.
Learn more about the collaboration in this interview link.
She reaches for his hand now to check his warmth while the nurse adjusts a tube, and checks his pupils with a little torch.
This collaboration between artists Broni Lisle and Jenni Mazaraki combines delicate prose with original music, crossing generic boundaries to invite the reader into a new, intimate world.
Want to help us make more work like this?
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Drop us a donation via this link. (We accept both one-off and ongoing donations).
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